Confidence makes its way into the Miami Dolphins' world

Three straight wins has team riding high into Thanksgiving date with Dallas

November 21, 2011|Mike Berardino, Sun Sentinel Columnist

MIAMI GARDENS — Brandon Marshall has been on both sides of the pancake, as Tony Sparano likes to say.

In 2009, Marshall's final year in Denver, the Broncos won their first six games under new coach/boy genius Josh McDaniels.

Memorably, McDaniels ran around in his hooded sweatshirt after a Sunday night win, punching the air like a male cheerleader and generally acting like he'd just come up with a long-awaited cure for restless-leg syndrome.

By season's end — after a 2-8 finish — McDaniels was out of a job.

So when Marshall talks about the role of confidence in the modern NFL, we should listen closely.

And here's what Marshall, the Dolphins' franchise receiver, said after Sunday's 35-8 win over the Bills.

"We have a lot of confidence," Marshall said. "When you have that type of swagger going, if you're good, you become great; if you're great, you become amazing. Confidence is a big thing."

No one is about to pronounce these 2011 Dolphins "great" or anything like it.

But after all the embarrassment the first two months of this season visited upon them, isn't it amazing to contemplate how far they've come since Halloween?

Not only are they a perfect 3-0 for the month of November, but they have drilled their past three opponents by a combined score of 86-20.

As they head to Dallas for a Thanksgiving Day meeting with the Cowboys, just two games separate the 3-7 Dolphins from second place in the AFC East.

Spring the upset on Thursday and the Dolphins could climb back to within a game of .500 by taking care of business at home against the Raiders and Eagles.

Making the playoffs remains almost unthinkable — they'd probably have to run the table, and even then they'd still need lots of help — but they're having too much fun to worry about that now.

But in the slippery-slope world of the NFL, where the margin of error is razor thin from week to week and confidence means everything, why not ride this thing as long as possible?

You can see it building from possession to possession, one good drive by the offense flowing into another three-and-out by a defense that has now gone 186 minutes between touchdowns allowed.

"That just breeds confidence throughout the team and throughout the guys on the field," Dolphins safety Yeremiah Bell says. "If you can do it possession after possession, time after time, it just breeds confidence and everybody feeds off of it."

Has the schedule been a little softer these past three weeks? Well, yes and no.

The Chiefs were tied for first in the AFC West and coming off a big home win over the Chargers when the Dolphins came in and rolled them by 28 for Win No. 1.

The Redskins opened the year 3-1 under a coach with two Super Bowl rings in his safe-deposit box, and the Dolphins handled them with little problem.

Sunday, it was a Bills team that opened 5-2 and earned Sports Illustrated's midseason nod for its first playoff trip in a dozen years. So much for that.